


and the seasons will change us new

by sayonide



Series: 3 rounds and a sound [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff, Gen, Tai needs to learn how to dad, Yangst?, author still doesn't know how to use tags, give rwby therapy 2020, seriously i'm open to any help, that's a tag and it's concerning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27344026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayonide/pseuds/sayonide
Summary: Summer dies in autumn. Yang puts her baby sister in a wagon and departs in the winter. With springtime comes forgiveness, and everything is almost okay by summer.
Series: 3 rounds and a sound [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002933
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	and the seasons will change us new

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to kiwi for reminding me what a kettle is and putting up with my spam

Summer died in autumn, as the leaves disappeared under the snow. Taiyang buries himself in blankets, locked in his room. The food in their cupboard goes stale, and it’s another 2 weeks before Qrow visits. He brings them food, berating Tai through the door, and teaches the girls as much as he can to make sure they can survive before he’s called out on his next mission. Ruby, barely even 4, makes him teach her how to bake cookies, before turning to ask when her mom was back, so she could show off her new skills, and he watches as his 6 year old niece turns to him like she's about to cry before taking a slow breath in a scarily familiar way. He looks at her blinking her tears away, and shoving a smile onto her face and picking Ruby up with a laugh.

He can't even stay to see what happens next. Before he knows it, he's storming back up the stairs and knocking on Tai's bedroom door so hard it creaks.

"What the hell are you doing?" He's growling through the wall, and it's taking far too much of his will to not start yelling. It's not the place for that, not with two kids just downstairs and close enough to hear everything if he did.

From the other side of the door, there's no response. It's what he should have expected, but it still manages to piss him off. "The girls deserve better than you," he says, as a last ditch attempt, before standing up straight and heading downstairs with the most fatherly smile he can put on. He can't stall forever, though, and eventually has to leave them for his next mission. "I'll be back," he promises, and makes a mental reminder to look up more recipes for Ruby, but she's having none of it. "That's what mama said," she whispers, tears welling up in her eyes before he can even think of a response. "And mama's gone now, you can't go too."

It makes him collapse to the ground, wrapping the girls up, one in each arm, before pushing them away and turning, trusting Yang to hold her sister back.

-

In the winter, Yang put her 5 year old sister in a wagon and goes off on a mission to find her mom. Well, she corrected herself, her _birth_ mom. Summer was her real mom, and always would be. But maybe, if she found Raven, if she proved how brave she was, then she would come back and they could have another mom, and Ruby wouldn't have to grow up with just-her-and-sometimes-Qrow, because just-her-and-sometimes-Qrow was nothing like having Summer around. Summer was supermom, and Yang was just... Yang. She was no Summer, and if she could remember supermom around, if Yang got to live so long with a proper mom then Ruby had to too.

She set out in the morning, with a sandwich for each of them and a small pile of blankets in the wagon, just in case Ruby got cold. By the time the sky was darkening, she was stumbling every other step, shoving her body through mud and thorns, draping the edges of the blankets over the wagon so that she could stick to the sides for some form of heat. The day was getting colder and colder. She'd long lost feeling in her limbs, but she couldn't give up. The map was so clear, the image so obviously a clue, Raven was right there and she couldn't give up when she was this close.

So, with the last of her strength, she surged forward and dragged herself and Ruby into a clearing, facing down a tattered, old house, the planks rotting and loose. For the first time in hours, she felt a surge of doubt. Did Raven really live here? Did anyone? _Could_ anyone? The torn open doorway showed nothing but pitch black, and Yang almost resigned herself to failure when a floorboard creaked. Shooting her head up, she took a cautious step forward and held her breath.

Another creak.

Quietly, hesitantly, she called out. "Raven?"

A third creak, and she stumbled forward, dragging the wagon behind her, racing to the house, before-

Red eyes. Too many to be one person, too bright to even be a person, before growling starts up.

That's not Raven.

The next thing she knew, Grimm, so much larger than the bug types she and Ruby would kill for fun in their backyard, were swarming out of the house, and oh, she should've known, why would Raven live in this rickety, broken down house?

But it's been a long day, and Yang's too tired to even scream, and Ruby's still fast asleep in her nest of blankets, so she took half a second to look at the Grimm racing towards them and turned around to start pushing the blankets into a lump on top of her baby sister. If she had to die here, she refused to let her stupidity affect Ruby as well. A hot breath hit the back of her neck with a growl. Shutting her eyes tight, she used the last of her strength to shove the wagon away, and the last thing she heard was the clicking of a shifting weapon and dark, shadowy flesh tearing into smoke.

-

She wakes up in her room, staring up at the ceiling and aches all over her body. Low voices are coming from outside, but when she forces herself to turn her head to the side, Ruby's there, staring down at her with fear.

"Yang," she whispers, in that loud not-quite-whispering way that 5 year old kids do. "Hey, what's going on?" Yang whispers back, much more quietly than Ruby, but the initial sound was enough to draw attention to them. Tai sticks his head in, and rushes her immediately. Before he can say anything, she's pushing him away, partially too focused on Ruby to care, and partially still stuck in the memory of him hiding away in his room, leaving her to keep the house up and running for over a year with only Qrow dropping in to help every once in a while. Leaving her to take care of Ruby, like a tiny mom.

"Are you okay?" She's asking, sitting up to look over her properly, and they let her fuss for a bit before Qrow's pushing Tai and Ruby out of the room. When they're gone, he shuts the door and sighs.

Before he can fully turn back around, the full weight of the situation finally hits her, and Yang curls into herself in bed and lets her tears fall in the security of knowing that no one but her uncle was there to see. He walks over to her bed, putting an awkward hand on her back. "Hey," he calls, softly. "What's wrong?"

She lets out a few shudders first, trying to shake it out of her system, before reaching over to grip his shirt.

"I almost killed her," she says into his shoulder. "I almost killed Ruby and I was just trying to find her a mom, and she almost died and I couldn't even find her a mom."

He pats her head, soft, and tells her, "Maybe it was for the best, kid. Raven's not the mom you want for Ruby."

-

Spring, Tai thinks, is the time for new beginnings. He drags himself out of bed, brushes his teeth, makes enough breakfast for himself and two teenagers going to a combat academy, and waits for them to wake up.

Ruby runs downstairs first, as always, with a grin, tossing her backpack to the ground before sliding into a seat. She's shoveling breakfast into her mouth at speeds that would concern him if he hadn't been seeing it for years, but as it is, he just chuckles and ruffles her hair. "Slow it down," he warns jokingly. She swallows the piece of toast and grins up at him.

"You know I won't choke," she says, reaching for her bag to finally sort it out like he'd told her to do probably a hundred times the night before. He opens his mouth to respond before hearing soft steps coming down the stairs. They both look up at the door, and Yang walks through, backpack sorted and head down.

She brushes past him, grabbing some breakfast and muttering a thanks to him, before putting the plates away and ushering Ruby out the door to head to school. Before the door closes, Ruby looks back over at him apologetically.

Spring is the time for new beginnings, he thinks, and maybe by next year she'll have forgiven him, as little as he deserves it.

-

_Because there are plenty of people out there who are still lost, and even more who will try to gain everything they can from their sorrow. Believe me when I say I know it can feel impossible. Like every single day is a struggle against some unstoppable monster we can never hope to beat. But we have to try. If not for us, then for the people we've already- for the people we haven't lost yet._

It's been weeks since she sent out the letter. Almost a year since she's seen her dad or Yang, and over a year since she's even had contact with the rest of their team.

But she's made it to Haven. Her, and Oscar, and team JNR, and even Qrow. So it's alright.

Ruby looks out the window, at the trees and the grass and the sun shining over it all. It's summer now, and she wonders if it's a sign. So many things suddenly going exactly as planned, as if her mom was there. Like she was watching over Ruby, after over a decade in the grave, making sure she was alright.

It was a nice thing to think, she decides, so she keeps at the train of thought. There's a soft warmth outside that reminds her of Yang, the laughter of her new family, and Ren's standing nearby with a kettle over the stove. It feels like a time that she can barely remember, sitting in their house in Patch on one of those days when everyone's at home, when she can almost imagine the supermom that Yang always described to her.

She's content to sit there and just enjoy the moment when Ren hands her a tray of cups, telling her to take it outside to the others. Ruby laughs and bounces up, walking into the living room before the doorbell rings. She turns around, expecting to see someone coming in from training, but she's cut short when there's a blur of yellow and white, blonde hair much longer than she's used to, too long to be Jaune.

Yang.

Her initial burst of joy is cut through with guilt, and she's looking down, whispering that she's sorry, because she shouldn't have just left. She shouldn't have abandoned them like that, but she shouldn't have pushed that hard, they both lost their partners but still had half the team and at least Ruby knew where hers was, and Yang didn't even have a right arm anymore, and she just left her and dad with nothing but a note,

And Yang's surging forward to hug her.

"I love you," she says, into Ruby's hair, and oh. Ruby reaches up to hold her even closer, crying.

Thank you, she thinks, and hopes that her mom can hear it. Thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> guys, nanowrimo's kicking my ass and i'm not even doing the full 50k.
> 
> also seriously if someone knows how to tag stuff please help because i don't.


End file.
